


Radio waves

by ezilo



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Family, Gen, Second War with Voldemort, Weasley Family-centric (Harry Potter)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-24
Updated: 2019-10-24
Packaged: 2021-01-13 15:51:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21162953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ezilo/pseuds/ezilo
Summary: The Weasleys reflecting on the looming war right as the ministry has fallen, and on the place their family holds in it.





	Radio waves

**Author's Note:**

> Arthur Weasley sends Ron a patronus to assure him that he and the rest of the family are well. This story takes place around that moment!  
I hope you enjoy it, I've always found the Weasley family very heartwarming.

Arthur watches the silver weasel disappear into the air, hopefully reaching its recipient. « I think it reached them, Molly. They’re alright. They’re alive. » Arthur’s voice cracks on alive. He sent a patronus to them. Them. The boy who lived, the brightest witch of her age, the king who holds them together. An orphan, a muggleborn, his blood traitor. A trio, children thrown into the unknown and into damp and dark muggle streets, into a wizarding world that’s hunting them. It hits him that this is the present. He’s told his children stories of a war, of disrespect, of young people fighting, of the blood in their veins and why it didn’t matter, of dying. They were stories, told in past tense to disbelieving ears and crinkled up eyes, to children who asked “You were this young dad? Ew.”  
But this was the present. His children were hurting and fleeing and scarring, now. He was a young father when the first war began; the baby he held in his arms then was married now. He’d hoped their fight would be enough. He’d hoped their sacrifice of youth would be enough. Arthur remembers Lily Potter’s vibrant hair and thinks of the different shades of red his children bear proudly.  
Molly slips her fingers through his and looks into his eyes. Hers haven’t changed, still as steadfast and twinkling as they were in the last war.  
“They are.” 

***

The weight of the wedding ring is new, deliciously so. The gold glints in the sunlight and heat of August. It’s beautiful, out here, empty and free, which is miles away from what the Burrow is like. It’s not that he doesn’t like it there – it’s that Bill has a life now. A life he chose, a woman he loves, a ring that’s the only novelty in this world he likes. They’re not fleeing. They’re re settling, and they know that soon, they’ll be the headquarters of the Order. The last remnants of the Order, that is. Bill’s first year at Hogwarts was the last of the war, and he remembers the despair choking the wizarding world at the time. He also remembers that summer, before he got into Hogwarts, the scream his mother let out when she got word of her brothers’ passing. Fred and George, named after the uncles they wouldn’t remember, got quiet, for once, and Bill wrapped his arms around his brothers, the way he always had and he always would.  
But in this war, they weren’t toddlers. The twins he’d watched grow up with permanently stitched on smirks were the most successful in the family, and they were fighting. He’d see them in headquarters and wouldn’t sleep on nights where they were away on mission. But Ron, his baby brother, is gone, vanished into the air and into Gryffindor courage, sacrifice and altruism. Bill hopes that one day, he’ll tell his children about their uncle without the pinch of mourning his mother wears when she mentions Fabian and Gideon.  
“What are you thinking about?” Fleur’s voice is clear like the sea from where she’s from, like the one that stretches out in front of them.  
“Our children, one day.” She smiles sweetly, and he’ll be in love with that smile all his life. At least this moment, the happiness that rests in her smile will never die in a flash of green, in despair, in sacrifice.  
“Not now. I want children born in peace.” She answers, brave and a bit rough. In her eyes, his scars are reflected. The sea holds the color of her own.  
“Me too. We’ll fight for that.” Her fingers are cold and firm in his.

***

It’s good to be home. Charlie had missed this, the smell of lingering fire and the sharp scent of dragon scales invading the air of his apartment. He has a pile of letters on his desk, which is hopefully a sign that his efforts to contact more wizards for the order are paying off. He’s still wearing his suit for the wedding, the one he was interrogated in, the one he proudly wore to stand by his brother and best friend as he married the woman he loves. Charlie drops his coat, sits at his desk and pulls a parchment sheet. He writes to Percy, because he always does, because he’s his little brother, and he should know their eldest got married. He should know they were attacked, he should know Ron is gone. He must know already, but he should hear it from him too. What will he do, now that the ministry had been overtaken? Will he stay under the reign of terror ? He politely inquires. He’s the only one that occasionally still gets answers from Percy. His involvement in the Order is important but more discreet, so he’s accepted by him, sometimes.  
Charlie writes to his parents, reassurances he knows are empty and support and love; to Bill, thanks and worries; to the twins, joking reprimands and expressions of pride; to Ginny, understanding and love, an open ear. He can’t write to Ron anymore. Ron is gone and lost and Charlie is so proud and so angry. Ron is too faithful, too kind, too emotional for this world and this war and what if he’s in danger what if he’s hurt. Charlie’s far away, but that’s fixable if he knows where he’s going. But he doesn’t know where to apparate to find Ron.  
Instead, Charlies stares at the burns on his forearm, and hopes his little brothers will make it out scarred but alive. Soon, he’ll get up and write and sweet talk and build connections that might save someone’s life. For now, he’ll mourn a day of happiness lost. (He’ll never mourn Ron’s death, and if you had said that to him then, he would have worried all the same. He’s got six siblings.)

***

“Welcome, Minister.”  
“Ah, Mister Weasley. I’ve heard great things of you. You truly are the best we have, aren’t you? At least the best Weasley.” And he laughs. Those words would have filled Percy with a warm shiver of glee, once upon a time. Now, they fill his tongue with ash. Best Weasley. He thinks of his big brother, scarred and married, now. Percy doesn’t know her. He thinks of the twins, who’ve given him nightmares, businessman at twenty. Percy ducks his head with a fake smile, right between thankful and obedient. His gran used to say he should be an actor. He’d scrunched his nose at that, 9 years old and solemn because that was the only way to stand out. “I’m going into the Ministry.” He did, and he’s a brilliant actor.  
There’s something off about the new minister. His eyes are clouded, his movements too smooth. He smiles a lot, at people getting dragged away, at people’s wands getting ripped off them, at families being torn apart. Percy writes everything down, makes reports, shuts up, shivers. He does nothing. He’ll blame himself his entire life. He reads his mother’s letters, even if they hurt, writes cold and disgusting letters to Charlie, endures the insults from Fred and George. He had always wanted to be the pride of the family. As the Minister leads the way to the interrogation room, where a young muggleborn mother is trembling with fear, Percy has the distinct feeling he will be the family’s shame. He wishes he were brave enough to change that.

***

Diagon alley is empty. The sun fills the street with a golden hue, with a promise of a happy day the wizarding world can’t keep. Some shops had half-heartedly opened, some shop owners had already fled. Fred and George were looking around their shop, their baby, their creation, but they were silent. There were no jokes, no laughter, no synchronised banter. The sunlight shining through heated the shop up, and they stood, on wobbly adult legs, next to each other, identical and proud of it. They looked into the street, the street in which they’d gotten their wands, same wood, same dragon heartstring. Bill had gone with them to Ollivander’s, they’d laughed with the old man. The wand chooses the wizard but their wands had chosen the twins. Their wands were twins as well, like Harry’s and Tom’s, and not like them at all.  
They’d grown up convinced that poverty was the enemy, that money could smooth out the wrinkles in their mother’s kind face. They had success, now, palms dripping with gold, and they couldn’t save and protect. They looked at each other, at the mirror of the other’s face, and thought, together, that they would save them anyway. That they would grip their twin wands and fight for an opportunity to make their siblings laugh, the opportunity to create again.  
Their latest project was a prank based on phobias. They spent a long time perfecting the spider, for a time when Ron could get scared by fake things again.

***

Ginny had dreaded Hogwarts, in the summer before her second year. She’d been scared to go back when people thought she was evil, scared to go back to a place stained by Tom.  
Now, she wasn’t scared. She was furious, mad at Harry, Hermione, Ron. Harry was the man she loved, not the boy she had admired. Ginny loved him for his flaws as well. Hermione was the best friend, the one she had rolled her eyes at, giggled with, the one who had helped her with her owls.  
And Ron was her brother. He was overprotective, she pushed his buttons. He thought he wasn’t special, she was convinced of the contrary. He was separated from them, and soon she would be as well. She would be the only Weasley at Hogwarts, for the first time in years. So she would be just that. She would knit sweaters like her mother and warm people up, she would wrap arms around shoulders like Bill, she would inspire like Charlie, she would have Percy’s organisation and stubbornness (bile rose up in her throat at the thought of him sitting at the Ministry – perhaps she wouldn’t take anything from Percy), she would have the twins’ laughter, Ron’s rugged bravery, his smarts, her father’s inventiveness. And her fierceness, her fight, her magnetism. She would go back to Hogwarts, and fight, and if Ron was too stupid to dare die, she would kill him.

***

Molly knew this. She knew this war, she knew these children dying for a cause. She knew red haired twins sharing smiles before rushing into battle. She knew insomnia, watching friends fall into cruel hands, never coming back.  
It was summer. Molly made lemonade for her children, always pouring too many glasses. So many were gone now. Bill was in love, preparing headquarters for a war he had been born into as well. Charlie was breathing in sync with dragons and writing frenetically to win a war he’d seen end. Percy had betrayed them, as the twins said, and Molly prayed he was safe. Ron was gone. Ron was a hero already. The twins were there, exceptionally. She’d learned from her mother how hard it was to let children go, to see them leave the nest. Her children were falling from the nest and into war. Into death.  
Molly Weasley had birthed seven children. She wasn’t naïve enough to think all the Weasleys would get out of this war. She was hopeful enough to think she would be the one to go.

***

Ron watched the silver weasel disappear with the blue eyes he’d gotten from his father. He suddenly felt so alone, so homesick. Behind him, he heard Harry and Hermione’s voices, but it was as if he was underwater, hearing sounds and not distinguishing words. But he could imagine them. The way Hermione’s hand twitched back to her wand, always, how Harry was afraid of sleep, afraid of what it held; reflexes from war. But there was also the way Hermione fiddled with the stray thread on the right of her favourite robes, and always had, and the spike at the back of Harry’ head, that he never noticed; those were their own, and war would not change that at least.  
Harry’s hair (his father’s hair) was black and bushy. Hermione’s was curly, huge and brown. Ron loved it.  
But he missed bright orange hair. The one that flowed along Ginny’s back. The one that spiked up on his father’s smiling head. The one that the twins always wanted identically cut.  
They were all safe. For now. But Ginny was going to Hogwarts soon. Dad to work. Alongside Percy, perhaps. They weren’t safe. Neither was he.  
Ron fell, collapsed on the bed, and the touch of Hermione on his arm felt like an anchor. He pulled her to him, thankful of her reassurance that indeed they were alright, when her own parents didn’t remember her. She and Harry were family, too, of course: Hermione had packed three Weasley sweaters. They were orphans, too, or as good as in Hermione’s case.  
But Ron was not. Ron had six siblings, two parents, and too much family to count. A sea of red, that held his name and his pride. He wasn’t proud of his blood, never, but he was proud of the Weasley heart, beating red and gold, hands reaching out to help, the warmth of wool and optimism. Ron’s eyes fell on the radio. He leaned into Hermione’s warmth, and swore that he would keep track of his family, any way he could.


End file.
